A motorized searchlight drive mechanism can include motor-driven coaxial shafts, one for turning a searchlight about a vertical axis, and the other used to pivot the search light to direct it at different elevations. Prior drive mechanisms have typically included a pair of motors mounted on a cast metal housing and engaged with gears fixed to the shafts. This has the disadvantage that each motor has to be individually mounted on the housing, and that the housing must be sufficiently stiff and precise so each motor-driven output gear accurately engages a corresponding gear on one of the shafts. In certain applications such as for the searchlight drive mechanism, it is desirable to dampen rotation of each shaft, to prevent the shaft from turning under moderately low forces, such as from the wind, while allowing the shaft to be turned when forced by hand as to enable the searchlight to be forced to turn when the motor is not energized. A drive mechanism which could be constructed at very low cost, and which overcame many of the disadvantages of prior drive mechanisms, would be of considerable value.